Kiyoshi Kurosawa's long career has been an eclectic one tackling dramas, horror, thrillers, and science fiction with equal rigor. In his latest, The Samurai and the Prisoner, he takes on a new challenge with a 16th Century historical drama though it contains elements of murder mystery and existential crisis recognizable in Kurosawa's previous work. Prisoner is an adaptation of the original novel by Honobu Yonezawa which follows Lord Murashige (Masahiro Motoki) who has rebelled against the warlord Oda Nobunaga and finds himself under siege inside his castle home. While Murashige and his soldiers await reinforcements, Oda sends the brilliant Kanbei (Masaki Suda) as an envoy to convince Murashige to surrender. Murashige instead invites Kanbei to join his rebellion and imprisons him when he refuses. Following Kenbei's imprisonment, a series of improbable murders befalls the besieged castle inhabitants and Murashige must turn to Kanbei to help unravel the mysteries.
The film is broken up into seasonal periods, each defined by a new inexplicable murder. In the "winter" chapter, the son of a traitor who's life Murashige initially spares is found dead of an arrow wound but there's no sign of the murderer or the weapon. Murashige and his men conduct a thorough investigation which proves inconclusive but they record all of the details so that Kanbei can review them. Kanbei acquiesces and his strategic mind is so keen he is able to make sense of the murder using only the scrolls provided to him. The mysteries drive the narrative forward but the philosophical deliberations between Murashige and Kanbei provide much of the films essence. Kanbei is loyal both to Oda and the honorable (if brutal) code dictated by a country at war. Murashige, on the other hand, is looking for ways to circumvent the obligation to kill and forge a more merciful path towards social order. These conversations range from the murders, personal ideologies, and eventually Murashige looks to Kanbei to advise him in his conflict with Oda. The dynamic is somewhat reminiscent of Clarice bringing case files to Hannibal Lecter (Kanbei even manages to kill a guard through verbal manipulation alone), though it lacks both the arch tone and the drama of those exchanges. The investigations also lack some suspense as they serve more as a pretense for further discussion in the dungeon.
Prisoner is a tremendous looking film taking place almost exclusively in medium or wide shots of the gorgeously rendered castle or absolutely stunning outdoor locations. Kurosawa's camera is typically trained on two or more people further emphasizing the hierarchical relationship between individuals and their (sometimes fraying) loyalty towards each other. Attention was clearly lavished on period detail and beyond the castle, the costumes are composed of rich textiles and patterns and objects from tea urns to religious icons are given their due. The battle sequences are scant but grounded in reality rather than dramatic excess and further underscore the authenticity of the time and place. The performances, especially from Suda and Motoki, are excellent which is crucial for a film focused largely on people talking.
Part of Kurosawa's genius is his ability to imbue scenes featuring relatively little action with emotional or dramatic potency. Even when he misdirects to offscreen events, they can still be filled with tension or dread when executed well. The Samurai and the Prisoner is an interesting examination of honor, faith, and tradition but it's perhaps too reserved to land with the same impact as some of Kurosawa's earlier films. I definitely felt the length at 147 minutes, but happily there are some satisfying reveals worth sticking it out for.
THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER opens in theaters this weekend
Oh hey! If you haven't heard, the newest issue of my crime film review zine APACHE REVOLVER is out and available in my web store: https://kino-ventura.square.site/
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As someone who dabbles in creative enterprises on occasion, I love a good restriction. Putting guardrails on art or writing is a terrific exercise to work through dry spells of inspiration or to discover new possibilities. I'm generally less enthusiastic about finished projects that strictly adhere to these restrictions throughout their final forms. Whether it's viewed as a limitation or a conceptual framework, I find films operating within this space to feel more gimmicky than innovative: the single shot film, the "real time" film, and even some single location films weigh heavy with filmmaking artifice and rarely are better for it. So it was with some trepidation that I sat down for Potsy Ponciroli's nearly wordless 70s period revenge thriller, Motor City. City is the story of John Miller (Alan Ritchson) an ex-con who finds himself on the wrong side of a narcotics frame job after he takes up with a local gangster's girlfriend. Miller teams up with old army pals to bust out of the joint and take down the gangster (Ben Foster) and his corrupt Detroit cop allies. To his credit, Ponciroli has already established himself as genre stylist with his remarkably sturdy Western siege film, Old Henry, which he also worked on with cinematographer John Matysiak. Henry featured a great lead performance from Tim Blake Nelson but some of its best sequences are realized without much dialogue at all. City is operating in a very different milieu, but it's clear that Ponciroli brought similar attention to detail for how the action plays out on the screen. It's a heavily stylized picture of 70s Detroit (New Jersey largely standing in for the titular town) that exhibits more cinematic glamour than it does urban grit. Pinciroli and Matysiak capture striking images of nighttime bathed in neon, streetlights illuminating water erupting from a shattered fire hydrant, and showers of sparks raining down from improvised pipe bombs Miller and his crew unleash in a warehouse. The warm color palette and slow motion photography paired with a soundtrack of eclectic 70s bangers result in something closer to a music video or cutscene than they remind me of any grindhouse classics. The music essentially acts as another character but the entirety of the sound design is rather rich and helps to fill details that dialogue may have provided in a traditional film. Beyond the soundtrack, there is a pulsing synth score courtesy of Steve Jablonsky that both provides contrast to the rock music and segues rather nicely into some of the Moroder-penned needle drops.
Performance takes on a fascinating dimension in Motor City as so many scenes rely on gesture and expression to convey the emotional core of the story even when specifics are lacking. Not to say that the plot beats are difficult to parse, but the three main leads, Ritchson, Foster, and Shailene Woodley as their shared object of desire, gamely take on the challenge. They are, consequently, big performances that read well without language but they never stray into cartoonish vaudeville. Foster, particularly, brings layers of emotion and intrigue to a character that could have been more of a two-dimensional villain. Ritchson is more than capable for the choreographed mayhem the film requires, but holds his own in scenes with Woodley's Sophie who handily communicates how fraught life can be for someone stranded between financial hardship and the promises of drug fueled luxury. Motor City operates in a surprisingly emotional, narrative driven register for a significant portion of the film which sets the table well for the third act of propulsive, bloody action. These scenes are satisfyingly brutal and pull few punches in their execution. I do wish that Pinciroli and crew had leaned further into practical gore as that would have better fallen in line with the old-school genre pleasures of the film, but the digital effects weren't distracting. What is distracting throughout the film is a series of long-haired wigs foisted onto Ritchson during different phases of Miller's life. While the hair itself looks fine, none of these rugs convincingly belong atop Ritchson's head and it's a tremendous relief when Miller shaves his hair in preparation for his final mission of retribution.
As much as a good restriction can be a source of inspiration, films featuring this kind of rigid conceptual framework run the risk of feeling more like an exercise than they do a complete work. The question of whether the film is better or worse with the limitation set in place is a persistent one. Motor City could have potentially been a stronger crime film with more, if still sparse, dialogue but that's not really Ponciroli's project here. It's likely that Motor City only exists because of this attempt to render a film so totally focused on sound and image. It's impossible to be unaware of the structure of the film while watching, but it's equally impossible to deny the meticulousness with which this has been crafted. I don't think Motor City is destined to be a genre classic, but insofar as "jukebox" movies go, this is one of the better ones.
MOTOR CITY opens in theaters this weekend
Oh hey! If you haven't heard, the newest issue of my crime film review zine APACHE REVOLVER is out and available in my web store: https://kino-ventura.square.site/
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It's mid-July and the Twin Cities is in the grip of a gnarly heat dome causing temps and humidity to spike way beyond what I would consider tolerable. In honor of this totally abysmal weather, I'm publishing a list from Apache Revolver #1 (currently sold out of its second run!) all about crime films characterized by unrelenting, sun-blasted environments. I can't tell you these films will help you beat the heat, but maybe you'll find some comfort in unfortunate miscreants that are having a harder, sweatier time than you are.
Nothing adds to the pressure cooker of stress and paranoia like cranking up the temperature. The following are 5 killer crime films dripping with perspiration.
1.Dog Day(1984) -Tonally bizarre genre piece and the only French film I believe Lee Marvin ever did. After an armored car job goes sideways, Marvin's professional thief hides out at a farm populated by a family far stranger, cruel, and exploitative then himself. Absolutely gonzo, nihilistic thriller with echoes of Prime Cut.
2.The Hot Spot ( 1990) -A steamy thriller helmed by Dennis Hopper featuring Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, and Jennifer Connelly. The desert sun beats down mercilessly on a small town filled with bad people doing bad things. The blazing day gives way to neon nights in what amounts to a beautifully stylized, melodramatic neo noir
3.The Great Okinawa Yakuza War (1976)- One of the most ferocious Yakuza films of the 70s. An absolute ripper of bloody action and meanspirited violence couched against the relentless tropical heat of Okinawa. Sonny Chiba is both charmingly outrageous and terrifying brutal as a gang leader on the rise. Perhaps the most intimidating popsicle eating scene this side of 8 Million Ways to Die's snow cones.
4.Stray Dog (1949) - Kurosawa's elegantly lyrical but no less tense tale of very hot, very bad day for a young police detective played by Tashiro Mifune. This is a much classier film than I usually write about but the suspense is exquisite and it captures post-war Japan beautifully.
5.Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)-Peckinpah's tour de force death trip is one of the sweatiest, grimmest, most fatalistic tales set to celluloid. Warren Oates never had a finer moment and the fact that he is in some ways channeling Fuller himself adds another layer of self-loathing to an already potent vision. Pour the tequila and fire up Guantanamera.
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The jug-man, the box-man, the yegg—the safecracker was once a key component to any compelling heist thriller and one that has become increasingly quaint in a world of digital encoding or biometric security. Along with co-writer Robert Ramsey, filmmaker Daniel Roher breathes some new life into the trope with his narrative feature debut, Tuner. Leo Woodall stars as Niki, a former child prodigy pianist who suffers from a incapacitating sensitivity to sound that both forces him to wear dual sets of hearing protection and makes him one of the finest piano tuners in New York. The film opens with a series of scenes showing Niki and his boss/mentor Harry, played by a cantankerous Dustin Hoffman, plying their trade for a largely wealthy clientele who have little appreciation or understanding of what it is the two men actually do. In an attempt to help Harry recover his hearing aids after he forgets his own safe combination, Niki finds he has a facility for hearing combination lock tumblers fall into place after he spends all night watching YouTube tutorials. Niki doesn't give this newfound ability much thought until Harry suffers a severe heart attack and his wife (Tovah Feldshuh) confesses that they've let their insurance lapse. Niki falls in with some security "consultants" who have a lucrative side-gig robbing select valuables from Niki's same affluent customers when they realize how useful Niki's talents can be. In the midst of all of this, Niki meets a young composer and pianist, Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), who initially finds him obnoxious but falls for his brooding charms after he saves her waterlogged piano. For a time, Niki rides high on the thrills of larceny and young romance, but his criminal activities take a darker turn and his duplicity begins to catch up to and affect the people he cares most about.
There is much to commend about Tuner. It's well composed and Roher employs both montage and sound design effectively resulting a film that's largely engaging. The cast is terrific; the camera loves both Woodall and Liu and there are some excellent supporting character turns as well. I was very happy to see a small role from C.S. Lee in one of Tuner's more sinister sequences. The premise is undoubtedly cool and there's some appreciation of Harry and Niki being men out of time—whether that be as piano tuners, jazz and classical music aficionados, or Niki's old-school safe-cracking skills. Also, the film takes place in NYC in autumn which endears itself to me rather easily. Having said that, the whole piece does wind up feeling a tad underdeveloped. The reliance on montage makes for fun viewing but renders some of the relationships and ideas somewhat superficially. I'm enough of a crime film fiend to always want deeper details regarding criminal enterprises but even the dramatic turns in Niki's and Ruthie's relationship come off as sudden and clunky. The plot is composed of familiar beats but while the climax and finale contain some surprises, they're more inconclusive than revelatory. Still, Tuner makes for some mostly enjoyable viewing and is one of the low/mid budget genre pieces intended for adult audiences managing to claw its way into theaters. It also has some genuinely hardboiled moments which make it an easy one to recommend if you're looking for some pre-blockbuster season counter programming.
TUNER opens in theaters this weekend
Oh hey! If you haven't heard, the newest issue of my crime film review zine APACHE REVOLVER is out and available in my web store: https://kino-ventura.square.site/
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Back at it again for the second week of the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival. If you have not checked out the first part of my MSPIFF coverage or some of my other festival coverage, I encourage you to do so. I wound up taking a couple of nights off to balance out some late night double features. Moving forward, I'm only addressing the days I was in attendance.
Day 7
Shorts 5: Chills
I used to have very little interest in live-action shorts but have really come around on the format in the last year or two. I wanted to fit in some during this festival and the Chills program seemed like the best bet for me. I did notice that Blossom Needs a Ride Home played with a different group of films and I caught that one at MidWest Weird Fest. It gets a recommendation from me if you have the chance to catch it.
Unfortunately, many of these films do not currently have Letterboxd entries so I'm linking to whatever seemed the most relevant. One thing I'll mention up front is that these films all looked terrific. Lower budget shorts (and features) can sometimes be rendered with a noticeably flat photography and that wasn't an issue with these at all.
Goodnight My Demons - Cute and moderately spooky. The black & white presentation helps lend it a 50s creature feature vibe. 2.5/5 Stars
Follower- A Korean language film that I believe is meant as a cautionary tale about social media. Unfortunately I don't think the material really justifies the sexual assault content it employs and comes off as superficial and gross. 1.5/5 Stars
Mad Island- A story of ghosts and memory set on the shores of Lake Superior. Visually and sonically compelling with some incredible footage of the frozen lake. Lily Rains' performance really carried this one over the top for me as she manages humor with an edge of weirdness to great effect. 3.5/5 Stars
Baroque - Dark and atmospheric with direct visual nods to Caravaggio and other artists of the period. Baroque is a modern story of a young artist who is struggling to get support from the older, more established artist who has hired her as a model. Her dreams are haunted by a different self in a past era who does assert herself with bloody consequences. Filmmaker Shelby Dillon creates a wonderful look and color palette for this and uses some terrific practical effects to maintain the dreamy surrealism. 3/5 Stars
Strive- This short film from Finland is really quite ambitious in its scope and execution. A sci-fi genre tone piece about a vaguely dystopian cyberpunk near-future where most people live quiet lives in virtual reality and some rebel street kids race cars against automated freight trucks. There's certainly some digital effects work at play here, but I was rather taken with some practical sequences and location work which lends a tangible gravity to the whole thing. The plot is simplistic, but this is more of a piece around mood than narrative. 3/5 Stars
The Boom - A Minneapolis made film from Ajuawak Kapashesit that tackles local phenomenon, The Longfellow Boom, and reimagines the source of the mysterious sound as a kind of ancestral call. Boom is filled with terrific nighttime locations across Minneapolis and the performances charm with a humorous touch. It also makes for an interesting bridge between urban legend and folktale in its presentation. I liked this a lot. 3.5/5 Stars
Superconcious - Closing out the program was Christianne Hedtke's conspiratorially toned short tackling remote viewing, shadowy government programs, face blindness, mental health, and grief. Primarily the story of Cybil G. (Nat Boltt) and her handler Harvey T. (Matt Olsen) who embark on a series of psychic experiments in an idyllic wooded location in 1973. There are sinister and tragic elements lurking at the edges of Superconcious but the overall mood is more one of mystery fueled by the unusual phenomena that launched television programs and best selling paperbacks during the 70s and 80s. Well acted and makes great use of the location, Hedtke's film is genuinely evocative of the era without ever feeling overly nostalgic or derivative. Imagine a more thoughtful, melancholy episode of X-Files and this is what you might get. 4/5 Stars
Mārama (2025) - Taratoa Stappard takes the framework of the gothic horror tale and fleshes out an anti-colonialist take on generational trauma and vengeance. Similarly to more conventional gothics, Mārama is set an 19th Century estate haunted by the misdeeds of the past and sinister family secrets (there's even a doppelgänger of sorts), but Stappard blends this with ancestral ghosts and memories in a way I found genuinely engrossing. Ariaana Osbourne stars as Mary (Mārama), a young Māori woman who travels from New Zealand to North Yorkshire under the pretense that the affluent English family living there had information regarding the parents she never knew. After meeting the estate's patriarch, Nathanial Cole played by Toby Stephens, it's clear there's something far darker lurking beneath their genteel manner and professed "understanding" of Māori people. The central mysteries are peeled back deliberately uncovering deeper and more horrible truths about the Coles, their predatory colonial past, and Mary's relation to them. Stappard presents North Yorkshire in stark, desaturated light during the day but fills the nights with rich, candlelit atmospheres very much evoking the classic English and Italian gothic horror films of the 50s and 60s. The estate is all dark corridors after sunset and the normal ephemera of English gentry is supplemented with appropriated Māori artifacts and spoils from the Coles' whaling days. Mārama does gather momentum towards the final third of the film as Mary learns the true depravity of the Coles and their inner circle and what begins as a haunted tale explodes into a story of grim and bloody vengeance. Osbourne delivers a fantastic performance initially quite subdued before erupting in righteous outrage. At one point Mary levels an audience (both onscreen and off) with a haka while wearing a blood red ball gown. I don't recall Barbara Steele ever pulling something like that off, but I like to think she would appreciate it. Stephens also absolutely commits to the entitled and possibly insane Cole who must shift from a paternalistic father-figure to a walking embodiment of colonialist cruelty. Mārama is atmospheric, gruesome, a little melodramatic and I think one of the better modern reinterpretations of gothic horror I've seen in a while.
3.5/5 Stars (maybe 4, I want to watch it again)
Day 9
Power Ballad(2026) - The latest from Irish director John Carney, Ballad stars Paul Rudd as a former rocker turned wedding singer who bonds with a former boy band star (Nick Jonas) over a night of drinking and jamming. I was granted a ticket for this from the studio before I received my press pass and they've asked that we not review it until closer to release. I'll say this; there's a lot of music in Power Ballad so if you like what you hear in the trailer, that bodes well for your enjoyment of the film. If you're not feeling it, than this might be a long watch.
Obsession (2025) - Comedian and filmmaker Curry Barker is a name I've been hearing lately, but this was the first of his films I've seen. Barker blends a 80s horror sensibility with uncanny imagery and off-kilter humor in a tale of young love gone horribly, horribly wrong. The film opens with a retro style commercial for the "One Wish Willow" which is the supernatural novelty at the heart of the film. Michael Johnston plays Baron (Bear) the soft-spoken member of a group of friends who pines for Nikki (Inde Navarrette) but lacks the confidence to tell her how he feels. Bear stumbles on the One Wish Willow while looking for a gift for Nikki and after he once again fails to speak up, he activates the wish by snapping the toy in half. Bear wishes that Nikki would love him more than "anyone else in the world" and she immediately turns her attention to him and also starts acting very strangely. While Bear does temporarily overlook Nikki's odder moments so he can maintain their "relationship", things begin to take darker and more extreme turns as Nikki's devotion to him grows a sinister edge. It's a classic monkey's paw set up and there's nothing spectacular about the writing on display. At times, it felt as though Obsession was a short film stretched to meet the length of a feature. Bear comes off as largely insufferable and fails to meet the lowest bars of integrity, making it a wonder that he has even platonic friendships with anyone. However, where Barker eventually won me over is in his presentation and commitment to utter mayhem as the film picks up steam. Navarette doesn't have much in the way of interior character to express but she's phenomenal in her performance of maniacal fixation turned to violent insanity. Nikki has haunting breaks of awareness peppered throughout the film that add a profound layer of ick to the conceit. While the plot and characters didn't distinguish themselves, Barker's comedic chops are still in evidence and the film has some very funny moments. Ultimately, I had a good time with this; it's a handsomely shot film, the young actors are all good with Navarette being really excellent, Andy Richter has a small role, and the gore and madness towards the end worked for me in ways that some of the "spookiness" did not. I'll definitely keep an eye out for more from Barker.
3/5 Stars
Day 11
The Blue Trail (2025) - Effortlessly charming, wryly funny, and occasionally lyrical semi-fable about an alternate world in which the Brazilian government has created a "colony" where seniors are forcibly relocated after a certain age to remove them from them from society and the workforce. Denise Weinberg leads as the resourceful and stubborn Tereza who, upon learning that her relocation is imminent, strikes out to experience more life before the "wrinkle wagon" comes for her. Her initial desire is to fly in a plane, but because she can no longer make travel plans without the consent of her daughter (legal guardianship of seniors also transfers when they reach colony age) Tereza is forced to find clandestine transport through a network of underground cash deals. While on a river trip through the Amazon, she's introduced to the psychoactive and possibly clairvoyant effects of the blue drool snail. Tereza's plane voyage is derailed when the money she gives to a man to fix his ultralight goes to booze and gambling instead. Striking out on her own, she's eventually taken by the authorities and sent in for "processing" before colonization. The film then becomes a prison break movie and Tereza is again on the lam where she finds a new friend and a potential path to her freedom. Blue Trail is exactly the kind of film I would expect to find at MSPIFF and is, in some ways, an clear crowd-pleaser aimed at the core audience. I do think filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro still manages to engage meaningfully with thorny issues even if done with a largely gentle touch. I found it all incredibly well done, Weinberg is a delight, and both my wife and I left the screening buzzing. The final act does go far more surreal than I anticipated and seems to deliver the message to seniors and anyone feeling trapped by their circumstances that drugs, crime, and wild chances are all fair methods when you need to break free.
Hokum(2026) - Damian McCarthy made some waves a couple of years ago with his well received horror film, Oddity, and is back with a new one featuring Adam Scott. Scott plays author Ohm Bauman who travels to Ireland to scatter his parents ashes and attempt to finish the latest installment of his best-selling "Conquistador Trilogy." Bauman clashes with nearly everyone he meets at the inn where he is staying and largely scoffs at rumors that the honeymoon suite is haunted by a witch. However, after being saved by a woman working at the inn, Bauman becomes invested in her mysterious disappearance and eventually the lore behind the witch. I confess I struggled to get invested in either they mystery or the supernatural elements in Hokum and found the whole affair largely dull. Bauman is clearly troubled but also acts like an absolute ass making him a complicated protagonist to rally behind. I'm relatively immune to jump scares and McCarthy hits them with steady regularity rendering what could be atmospheric dread into a demo reel of fright gags. It's a fine looking production and Scott follows the assignment gamely, I just couldn't hang onto anything for the duration of the film. Other people seem to view this far more favorably than myself so it could have been the night.
2/5 Stars
Day 12
Mothertongue(2025) - Zhang Lu's latest film about language, family, regional affiliation and how that all influences personal concepts of identity. Bai Baihe plays Fang Chunshu, a woman who becomes disillusioned with professional acting in Beijing and decides to return to her hometown of Chengdu. Even though Chunshu's mother is still living in Chengdu, her initial efforts after arriving are to reconnect with her childhood acting teacher; the surrogate mother-figure that influenced her so deeply. Chunshu discovers that her teacher is now suffering from Alzheimer's but she has interludes of lucidity where she does remember their time together. Chunshu also befriends her mentor's son, Dong, and the two of them spend much of the film wandering through the evolving Chengdu cityscape. I'm not terribly familiar with Zhang Lu's previous work, but glancing through his filmography it seems like reunion, homecoming, and reconciliation with the past are some of his regular thematic hallmarks. Mothertongue is no exception and also features a significant thread around Chinese regional dialects and cultural identities. It's a gorgeous movie and I was quite happy to let scenes of Chengdu's various neighborhoods wash over me. It does meander to the point that the narrative pull is diminished, but there are some genuinely fantastic moments leading up to that. Mothertongue is a surprisingly hard-drinking movie and essentially anytime the characters gather for a meal; funny, awkward, and moving performances are on display.
3/5 Stars
Romería (2025) - Set in 2004 along the Atlantic Coast of Spain, writer/director Carla Simón presents the story of a young woman attempting to reconnect with the family of her birthfather. Newcomer Llúcia Garcia plays Marina, a young woman who was adopted after both of her parents died from AIDS in the fallout of Spain's 80s heroin scene. Marina travels to Vigo, not only to meet her extended family and learn about her parents, but to correct a public record that doesn't acknowledge her existence so that she can properly apply for educational grants. Marina's reception in Vigo ranges from warm to antagonistic, but even the more welcoming family members remain guarded around the specifics of her father's final days. Even in the early 00s misconceptions and stigma around AIDS persisted and it's clear that Marina's paternal grandparents intentionally tried to bury the past along with their son. Romería is broken into discreet chapters and filled with lovely coastal scenery captured with fragments of video footage interwoven with the more conventionally shot sequences. Simón takes a magical realist approach to the penultimate chapter that allows Marina to experience a recreation of Vigo in the 1980s and the carefree life her parents led before addiction and death caught up to them. There's an incredible nightclub scene that transforms into a dance number before becoming a chilling allegory for the lives lost at the height of the epidemic. This flashback in time contains some fantastic needle drops including Lole and Manuel's Tu Mirá (undoubtedly familiar to the Kill Bill fans out there) and Bailaré sobre tu tumba from Vigo-based punks Siniestro Total. The retro vibe, drug content, and use of music rendered the sequence like a miniature Quniqui film though not quite as explicitly hopeless as those movies can be. I did appreciate the uncomfortable family drama friction that encompasses most of Simón's film and Garcia is clearly a talent able to express subtle mood shifts with her expression and body language. I confess that the trip back in time was the part that really stuck with me, though.
3.5/5 Stars
Check out some Siniestro Total!
Blue Heron(2025) - Reconciliation of familial past was certainly the theme for Day 12 and Sophy Romvari's feature debut made for the perfect finale to a childhood trauma triple feature. Romvari recreates a loosely autobiographical story of a Hungarian immigrant family that moves to Vancouver Island sometime in the late 1990s. The story is framed around 8 year old Sasha (Eylul Guven) but it's her eldest brother Jeremy (Edik Beddoes) and his increasingly hostile and fragile mental state that dominates the central conflict. While not officially diagnosed, Jeremy is experiencing something resembling Oppositional Defiance Disorder and his acting out is shifting from unruly and anti-social to physically threatening. Jeremy's parents, having exhausted various avenues of child therapy, turn to social services who give them an extreme option that's both heartbreaking and possibly their final recourse. Romvari then makes a formally daring decision to move the film decades ahead in time where an adult filmmaker Sasha is working on a project not dissimilar from the very film being watched. Amy Zimmer plays the mature Sasha and serves, to some degree, as a stand-in for Romvari herself trying to make sense of a difficult family history via cinematic storytelling. The two timelines collide allowing Romvari-Sasha to go back in time and interrogate her own parents and history around Jeremy's troubling and erratic behavior. Romvari's take on storytelling structure and blending fictional with documentary elements is a genuine breath of fresh air regarding cinematic form. The first section of the film faithfully builds a hazy nostalgia for a specific time and place (even if it's one you haven't experienced). Sasha's father is shown to be an avid photographer and home-video enthusiast so the film is layered with authentic feeling (though fictional) documents of a home life that was undoubtedly turbulent but also marked with moments of grace and joy. The introduction of modern elements allow for a more frank discussion of changing attitudes towards child psychology and how social work succeeds and fails in aiding families. I can't say I was as engaged for the latter part, but I applaud the ingenuity and do find this a heartfelt tribute to a family and a brother that struggled to find their way.
3.5/4 Stars
Dinner of Film Festival Champions
So ends my 2026 MSPIFF! I watched fourteen features and one shorts program which is a touch lighter than in some years, but I thought the quality was consistently good with only a couple of things that fell truly flat for me. It remains a highlight of my year and the programming and organization are really commendable considering the resources the Film Society is able to bring to bear. I can't speak in figures, but the attendance appeared to be quite high with even less-hyped films regularly selling out. My days of wandering into the box office and grabbing up tickets a few minutes before a screening are certainly over, but a little preparation on my part is a small price to pay for cinematic enthusiasm. As always, I'd like to thank MSP Film Society for generously granting me a press pass and this year I'd like to give a special shout out to Metro Transit as I took the newly operational E Line to and from all of the screenings I attended.
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We're back once again for the 45th(!) Annual Minneapolis St. Paul Film Festival where film fans and filmmakers congregate near the banks of the Mississippi River just outside of Downtown Minneapolis for 200+ films from all over the world. MSPIFF is something I've enjoyed parts of for decades now, but has truly become a cornerstone of my movie calendar since they've generously been granting me press credentials for the past few years. For me, it's a chance to catch things that I've heard about from other festivals or experience films more outside my usual focus. Most importantly the MSP Film Society has managed to capture that alchemy of venue, programming, and people that make a film festival more than a mere marathon of movie watching.
Day One
Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story (2026) - A new documentary covering the life and career of Maria Bamford with a particular focus on her struggles and experiences with mental health issues. Directors Neil Berkeley's and Judd Apatow's film provides the perfect introduction to Maria's comedy for the uninitiated while remaining surprisingly revelatory for long time fans. Despite Bamford's Minnesota origins, I think I (like many others) discovered her through another documentary, TheComedians of Comedy, twenty years ago. I was already familiar with her CoC fellows Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn, but came away from that film thinking Bamford was the funniest comic featured (thought those early Zach Galifianakis bits are priceless). Not long after, I devoured her early YouTube show, her albums, and even managed to see her at Acme Comedy when she could have arguably been selling out larger theaters. It was her surreal, theatrical approach to stand-up that initially won me over but her work also always contained a fearless element of autobiographical confession; whether that was her brilliant impressions of family members or her startlingly frank material about mental health. All that is to say, I thought I knew Bamford's narrative fairly well. Berkekley's and Apatow's documentary is very conventional in its form of talking heads, archival footage, and following Bamford around with a camera crew. Still, Hope does an admirable job of organizing Bamford's life into cohesive chapters while always interweaving her comedy into a story that touches upon depression, eating disorders, suicide, OCD, death, and even the California wildfires. There's a degree of emotional whiplash to the film and it isn't afraid to delve into darker or even negative elements around Bamford's work, but because the focus is so strongly on her the result is intensely funny and humane. As a longtime fan, I think my favorite bits were towards the end of the film where Berkeley was explaining some of Bamford's highly unconventional professional practices (one on one comedy sets with strangers, 8am matinees to families) to the complete astonishment of her peers. It's testament to Bamford's singular persona to have been so honest and open for so many years and still be able to surprise and delight even your closest colleagues.
4/5 Stars
This was followed up with a Q&A with Berkeley, Bamford, and her sister Sarah (who formerly cut the dead up into chunks). They were all extremely gracious and enthusiastic to present to a Minnesota audience (describing Duluth as a "Freshwater Monaco" got a huge laugh) and Bamford was effortlessly hilarious.
Day Two
The Christophers (2025) - A deft two-hander from the steadily prolific Steven Soderbergh starring Ian McKellen as a once notable artist in decline (Julian Sklar) and Michaela Coel (Lori) as an artist hired by Sklar's children to masquerade as his assistant while "completing" some unfinished works from his most acclaimed period. Christophers is a beautifully performed film with a fascinating see-saw between Sklar's unrelenting onslaught of frequently funny diatribes and Lori's densely layered series of expressions that slowly gives way to her filling up more of their shared space as their personal dynamic shifts. It's also exquisitely photographed using almost entirely handheld shots for the cavernous interiors of Sklar's decaying side-by-side townhomes while the exteriors are filmed more traditionally. There's a quasi cat-and-mouse game around the identities of the two and how they relate to each other, but really it's more about understanding what it is, exactly, that they want out of their bizarre partnership. Visually, Soderbergh employs a recurring motif around climbing or descending stairways or crossing thresholds that elegantly, if not explicitly, illustrates Lori and Sklar trying to sort out where their mutual trust begins and ends between them. It's a clever film but not one that ever spoke to me deeply and finishes somewhat mutely. Soderbergh has been in the media most recently, and unfortunately, due to his apparent enthusiasm for using generative AI in some of his upcoming projects. Knowing that, it's hard for me to not read some of that subtext in this film about the sometimes derivative nature or questionable authorship of art.
3.5/5 Stars
Normal (2025) - Another film in Bob Odenkirk's streak as a hyper-violent comedy/action star, but this time from English director Ben Wheatley who has made boldly stylish (if not always successful) forays into films as diverse as A Field in England and Meg 2. My introduction to Normal was an early trailer featuring (in voiceover) one of the most absurdly exaggerated Minnesota accents this side of Fargo which didn't bode well for a watchable film. Fortunately subsequent trailers dispensed with the voiceovers and there's little overt attempt by the actors to approximate anything other than a vaguely midwestern tone to their speech. Odenkirk stars as Ulysses, an "interim" sheriff serving the titular town that really could be anywhere in the US that's both rural and snowy. Ulysses has taken this role leaving a disgruntled wife and some kind of unpleasantness behind and initially finds the small town rather charming despite some early indications that not all is as it seems. Mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Normal's previous sheriff as well as an ill-conceived bank robbery serve to uncover the town's secret and Normal wastes no time in becoming a ferociously brutal, nearly non-stop series of shootouts and brawls between Ulysses, a few choice allies, and the rest of the town. Wheatley (unsurprisingly) allows the violence to go straight over the top and illustrates early on that no character is safe from an uncompromisingly savage demise. This serves the film both by employing wildly inventive gags (so much eye trauma) as well as the comedy in a deeply nihilistic splat-stick fashion. Odenkirk seems completely at home in this register and he has some solid support from the likes of Lena Headey and Henry Winkler but the plot and any attempt at characterization feels tertiary to the onscreen mayhem. In fact, the attempts to fill in Ulysses' backstory feel like unwanted intrusions on the otherwise raucous parade of innovative carnage. Ultimately, the humor and gore were executed well enough to win me over and I did not struggle to shut my brain off and enjoy Normal for what it does best.
3.5/5 Stars
Day Three
Everybody to Kenmure Street(2026) - My Wife and I headed over to The Edina Cinema (returning as a satellite venue this MSPIFF) to catch this Scottish documentary that I'd heard about coming out of Sundance. Kenmure Street documents a day in Glasgow when the UK Home Office detained two immigrant men and the community turned up to resist and prevent them from leaving. Specifically, an activist referred to as "Van Man" crawled underneath the immigration enforcement van where the two men were being held and clung to the axle so that they could not drive away. This direct action stalled the immigration raid and allowed for more community members to surround them resulting in a tense standoff between the neighborhood and law enforcement. It's an interestingly constructed film that does a fine job providing historical context to both the story of immigration and resistance movements in Glasgow and how that relates to what took place on Kenmure Street that day. The archival footage is broken up with interviews with several of the witnesses and participants of the protest though the testimony of Van Man and an anonymous nurse who was on the scene are recreated by Emma Thompson and Kate Dickie. There's clear parallels between the events detailed in Kenmure Street and the brutal wave of federal occupation here in Minnesota and the director, in his introduction to the film, mentioned that they felt they were making this documentary for Minneapolis. This was an emotional watch for me even though the film's narrative is ultimately about community resistance overcoming state sponsored tyranny. It's hard not to think about how similar circumstances had drastically different (and lethal) results locally. I suppose it speaks to my American perspective that I found myself repeatedly wondering why they police weren't gassing or firing rubber bullets into the protesters, but my understanding is that the relative restraint demonstrated by law enforcement that day is somewhat of an anomaly. I just can't imagine a situation where ICE or MPD would similarly choose to de-escalate where they can employ significant levels of violence against the public with near-immunity. Having said that, Kenmure Street makes a clear argument against the kind of stupidity and cruelty that fuels things like Home Office dawn raids and a rousing document of community solidarity and resistance in the face of oppression. Sadly, I could not stay for the Q&A but did get a glimpse of the Van Man himself as I sprinted to the bus stop.
4/5 Stars
The first MSPIFF showing of Kenmure Street was on the opening night and I understand from attendees that Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey introduced the film. Locals know that despite swearing in front of television cameras and going on a press tour, Frey was virtually absent on the streets of Minneapolis during the worst of Metro Surge. The resistance to ICE and the incredibly robust networks of mutual aid were grassroots operations that happened in spite of the fecklessness of many elected officials and local law enforcement. There are a huge number of individuals that enabled these movements and any one of them would have been a better choice than Frey to open the film.
Uncle Roy (2026) - Apparently Friday nights are for shedding tears and Keri Pickett's touching portrait of her uncle, Roy Blakey, had the whole theater choking up by the time the credits rolled. Blakey lived through wild and wide-ranging experiences starting as a performer in a world-traveling ice show during the 50s and 60s before moving on to a successful career as a headshot photographer in 1970s NYC. Also during that time, Blakey took and published astonishingly composed and highly influential male nudes making him one of the pioneers of gay photography. These two thematic drivers of Blakey's life, ice skating and the nudes, would make for a compelling story on their own and that narrative is supported by a truly incredible personal archive of photos and home movies that Blakey meticulously kept. However, Pickett also weaves in the final chapter of Blakey's life where (in his 90s) his cognitive function and health begin to decline precipitously while he is still looking for somewhere to house his vast collection of both photos and ice show memorabilia. The result is an intimate and unflinching look at the last stages of life and what it means to love and care for someone moving through this phase of their journey. Honestly, I skimmed by Uncle Roy in the initial program guide because I wasn't that interested in ice skating. To my delight, the ice show elements are actually quite immersive thanks to all of the archival footage Blakey's irrepressible good nature and impish sense of humor. The additional material about NYC, the 70s gay scene, and a wonderful collection of interviews with dancers and models who all posed for Ray further underscores how he touched so many lives of the people he came into contact with. I was especially taken with a sequence focused on the University of Minnesota Tretter Collection which is the largest LGTBQ archive in the Midwest and now the home of all of Blakey's materials, both skating and non-skating related. I have no idea what kind of distribution Uncle Roy will receive but it's one to look out for or, at the very least, look Blakey and his work up for yourself.
4/5 Stars
Carolina Caroline(2025) - I've been looking forward to Adam Rehmeier's lovers-on-the-lam film since hearing positive things out of TIFF last year and also because it's one of the few crime movies I get to see in the festival lineup. Kyle Gallner stars as a drifter and con-man (Oliver) who picks up Samara Weaving's Caroline after she catches him in a change scam at the gas station she works at. The two have an instant and electric connection and share troubled family histories involving feelings of abandonment. Caroline is quickly swayed by the heat of their relationship, Oliver's anarchic personal philosophy, and (perhaps most importantly) the opportunity to get out of Texas. The pair make good partners both romantically and criminally, moving rapidly from department store scams to a series of bank robberies across the Southern US. As the stakes increase, things inevitably go sideways resulting in violence Caroline didn't sign up for and disillusionment in the outlaw lifestyle. There's a lot that's easy for me to like about Carolina Caroline; besides their good looks both leads give solid performances and their on-screen chemistry is evident. Rehmeier set Caroline in the 90s and elected to shoot some tremendous authentic locations in a warm, analog style that matches the period while speaking to some previous classics in the genre. The scams and heists are intriguingly constructed and have some legitimate tension to them. What Oliver and Caroline lack in studied professionalism they make up for with instinct and guts and it's very believable. Thematically, I'm not sure things hang together quite as well. Oliver's early pitch to Caroline is that ripping off larger chain stores or banks is essentially victimless because any losses would barely render a blip on their yearly financials. Shortly thereafter the two pull a Grifters style scam on an unsuspecting businessman where they drain his bank account for thousands of dollars. Maybe he's supposed to be rich enough to eat the loss, but he certainly seems like a victim in the context of the film. The more interesting angle in Oliver's credo is that free will is an illusion and everyone is the product of millions of influences and impulses that drive their decisions from moment to moment. He and Caroline act as though they're on the outside of this agency-free continuum until the last act of the film when the consequences of their actions finally fold in around them. Oliver's resignation to their shared fate comes suddenly and completely and it's clear it was never going to end any other way.
3.5/5 Stars
Day Four
Personal obligations prevented me from attending the fest on this day. I still managed to have a good time.
Day Five
Dean Cundey in Conversation - MSPIFF has been getting some tremendous guests over the last few years for their "industry night" and tribute to founder, Al Milgrom. This year was none other than the legendary cinematographer, Dean Cundey. These are lightly moderated chats and Cundey was gracious with his time and anecdotes covering everything from the Roger Corman days to his collaborations with John Carpenter to his many innovative, effects driven blockbuster efforts. These days, I'm generally more curious about the old drive-in programmers than the Hollywood pictures but I wasn't surprised that his talk dwelled more on Jurassic Parkor Who Framed Roger Rabbit than it did on The Witch Who Came from the Sea or Black Shampoo. It was a fun talk, Cundey is funny in a grandfatherly way and the folks in attendance were clearly very excited to have him.
Late Fame(2025) - An adaptation of the posthumously published novella from playwright Arthur Schnitzler by director Kent Jones and writer Samy Burch starring Willem Dafoe as a postal worker whose decades-old book of poetry is "discovered" by a group of energetic young writers. Jones and Burch transport Schnitlzer's narrative from 19th Century Vienna to modern day New York rendering the film a statement not just on the nostalgia around the aspirations of young artists but also a remembrance of a bygone era in the city. Ed Saxberger (Dafoe) remains largely gracious and grounded when approached by Meyers (Edmund Donovan) and his quasi-salon that refer to themselves as the Enthusiasm Society, but he does begin to get seduced by the possibility of re-establishing his artistic notoriety even in a small way. One key element to this seduction is Gloria (Greta Lee) an actor who is no less obsessed with construction an affected artistic persona than the rest of the Society but has different financial realities than her wealthy and affluent fellows. While there's nothing overtly romantic about Gloria and Ed, they do fascinate each other and some of the more profound and melancholy moments occur between them. At one point Gloria looks at Ed and tells him "you must have been so beautiful when you were young" and, of course, we know he was but that person and that time are in the past now. I'm a sucker for NYC movies and movies about artists and Late Fame is exactly the kind of film I tend to be won over by, but I think it really does handle themes around youthful ambition and the comfortable resignation that sometimes comes with age without ever becoming maudlin or overly sentimental. Dafoe and Lee are impeccable and the younger actors who make up the Society are frequently hilariously cringe inducing. The film is bursting with good location work and the music from Don Fleming seems to lightly reference his own 80s music as well as his collaborations with Sonic Youth and Thurston Moore.
4/5 Stars
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The Forbidden City is an ambitious effort from director and writer (along with Stefano Bises and and David Serino) Gabriele Mainetti that fuses together cultures as well as genres into a sprawling martial arts action drama. Yaxi Liu stars as Mei, a young woman from Fujian Province who travels to Rome seeking her older sister, Yun, who went abroad to earn enough money to cover the acknowledgement penalty Mei faced as a consequence of being born under the (now repealed) one child policy in China. Mei's first stop is a brothel that appears to have trafficked Yun and Mei learns, via hard hitting kung-fu fueled interrogation, that her sister has run off with the married proprietor of a local restaurant. Pursuing Yun's trail, Mei encounters Marcello (Enrico Borello), the son of said proprietor, who is mainly preoccupied with keeping the restaurant running but is also interested in his father's whereabouts. Mei's relentless pursuit uncovers the connections between Marcello's family, low-level gangster and slumlord Annibale (Marco Giallini), and Wang (Chunyu Shanshan); a Chinese gang-leader who runs the brothel as well as the titular Forbidden City restaurant. The fates of Yun and Marcello's father are also soon revealed and the hunt for missing persons transforms into a bloody-minded quest for vengeance. City combines family drama, culture-clash romance, travelogue, and gritty martial arts action into a slickly produced, well acted crime story that successfully entertains even if it doesn't execute each element perfectly.
Yaxi Liu's career has mainly comprised of stunt work (Mulan) and she brings that professional level of physicality to the role of Mei. There are several fight sequences throughout the film including an absolute ripper near the beginning that transforms a restaurant kitchen into a veritable funhouse of pain and violence. The film's fight choreography is innovative and features a diverse display of improvised weaponry from the whimsical (a fish or bouquet of roses) to the viscerally gnarly (a kitchen grater) while never losing a realistic sense of gravity. Commendably, Marcello isn't called upon to assert any spontaneous fighting acumen, letting Mei fully inhabit that role, but demonstrates his resourcefulness in the kitchen and exhibits resolute bravery in the face of physical danger. While the earlier fight scenes are characterized by some faster editing, the genuine athleticism of the performers is still allowed to take center stage. A later showdown between Wang and Mei uses a more traditional medium shot framing providing sufficient real estate to highlight their abilities. There's an elegance to Yaxi's style that's even further emphasized by her tall, athletic frame though in no way does she sacrifice speed and agility in her movements. Chunyu Shanshan is a long-time veteran of the genre and the film does a terrific job of obscuring his martial prowess until this major set-piece.
Beyond the bone-crunching action sequences, the other facets of Forbidden City land with various degrees of success. The performances are solid and very charming. The antagonists-turned-lovers relationship between Mei and Marcello convinces largely based on the charisma and chemistry between the two leads. Setting the film in Rome and allowing for Mei to fall in love with both the city and Marcello during a nighttime scooter tour is, admittedly, hard to resist. I also appreciated how Rome is depicted as a multicultural city beyond a simple Italian/Chinese dichotomy and there is room made for North African/Middle Eastern immigrant narratives as well. Marco Giallini and Chunyu Shanshan are both believable in their respectively brutal though paternalistic roles even as things get somewhat murky about their motivations in the final act. There is a plot twist that can be seen from space for anyone familiar with crime film and another one that was a legitimate surprise for me. At nearly two hours and twenty minutes, there's certainly some material that could have been excised from the final cut while maintaining a coherent narrative. Still, it's understandable when trying to capture so many genres in a single film.
There's a prevalence of CGI phoniness in 21st Century action films and while Mainetti's genre-bender isn't immune to a level of digital polish, it still possesses an authenticity in both its action and setting. There have been various films tackling Asian and Italian gang conflicts since the 70s, but for the most part they have taken place either in New York, Hong Kong, or both. Forbidden City's blend of European and Chinese sensibilities, languages, and performers brings something unique this well established formula. While the finale does meander, there's enough leading up to that to be well worth checking out for martial arts/action fans. Yaxi Liu absolutely has the genre goods and gives a breakout performance as Mei. I will be hotly anticipating whatever is next for her.
THE FORBIDDEN CITY PREMIERES ON VOD 03/17/2026!
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